Further Mr. Bowles says of their nesting habits: “Both birds assist in the duties of incubation, the male singing most assiduously while on the nest, and usually singing close to his mate while she is sitting. His turn at sitting seems to come between nine o’clock in the morning and noon, and the nest is not hard to find if his song can be traced. The bird student must work quietly, however, as the song at once ceases should any unusual noise occur. They are most courageous while on the nest, seldom leaving until removed by hand, when both birds remain within a few feet of the intruder, scolding vigorously. So much noise do they make that all the birds in the vicinity are attracted—indeed this is about the only sure method of ascertaining the presence of some of our rarer Warblers. On one such occasion a female Cooper Hawk left her nest, which was seventy-five yards distant, and sat on a branch overhead, screaming at me.

“They are the quickest as well as the slowest birds in completing their nests that have come under my notice. One pair built a handsome nest and laid four eggs in precisely ten days; while another pair were more than three weeks from the time the nest was started until the eggs were laid.

“They are the only Vireos that I have ever known to nest in communities. Single pairs are the rule, but I have found as many as six occupied nests inside of a very small area, the nests being only a few yards apart.”

Taken near Tacoma. Photo by Bowles and Dawson.
O’ER YOUNG TO FLIT.

No. 141.
ANTHONY’S VIREO.

A. O. U. No. 632 c. Vireo huttoni obscurus Anthony.

Synonym.—Dusky Vireo.

Description.—Adults: Above dull olive, brightening (more greenish) posteriorly; wings and tail dusky, edged chiefly with pale olive-green; two prominent wing-bars of pale olive-yellow or whitish, formed by tips of middle and greater coverts; tertials broadly edged with palest olive on outer, and with whitish on inner webs; outer web of outermost rectrix whitish; underparts sordid whitish and more or less washed, chiefly on breast and sides, with dingy olive-yellow; lores pale; an orbital ring of whitish, or palest olive-yellow, interrupted midway of upper lid by spot of dusky; bill horn-color above, pale below. Length about 4.75 (120.6); average of three specimens in Provincial Museum at Victoria: wing 2.46 (59.9); tail 2.20 (55.8); bill .35 (8.9); tarsus .75 (19).

Recognition Marks.—Pygmy to warbler size; dingy coloration; whitish wing-bars serve to distinguish bird from Vireosylva g. swainsonii, but throw it into confusion in summer with the Western Flycatcher (Empidonax difficilis), which it otherwise closely resembles, and in winter with the Sitkan Kinglet (Regulus c. grinnelli). From the Flycatcher it may be distinguished by its shorter, narrower and yet thicker bill, and by its more restrained yellowness; from the Kinglet by its greater size and much stouter bill, more prominent wing-bars, and rather less prominent eye-ring; and from both by its demure ways.

Nesting.—Nest: a semipensile basket of interwoven mosses lined with grasses (nine feet high in fir tree—one example known). Eggs: 2-5(?); .72 × .52 (18 × 12.9). Season: June (probably also earlier).

General Range.—Pacific Coast district from western Oregon to southwestern British Columbia at lower levels (not at all confined to oak woods as variously reported).

Range in Washington.—West-side, as above; strictly resident.

Authorities.—? Townsend, Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. VIII. 1839, 153 (Columbia River). Bowles (C. W. and J. H.), Auk, XV. 1898, 138. Ra. B. E.

Specimens.—U. of W. Prov. B. E.

In approaching the study of Anthony’s Vireo one must forget all he knows or thinks he knows about Vireos in general. This bird is sui generis, and deviations from all known rules are its delight. It has been, in fact, until quite recently, a sort of woodland sphinx, an ornithological mystery, the subject of much inquiry and hazard. Its presence in Washington was quite overlooked by Cooper and Suckley, and Mr. Rathbun’s appears to be the record[58] of first occurrence, that of a bird taken May 14, 1895. I took a specimen on Capitol Hill on the third day of June of the same year; and since that time appearances have become a matter of course to the initiated. Samuel N. Rhoads[59], writing in 1893, considered Anthony’s Vireo a rare visitor to Vancouver Island, where he secured a specimen in 1892 near Victoria. Fannin[60] records it as “a summer resident on Vancouver Island.” As matter of fact, the bird is resident the year round wherever it occurs. I saw it near Victoria during the coldest weather of 1905-6, and find it regularly at Seattle and Tacoma during the winter season. J. H. Bowles secured a specimen, a male in full song, at American Lake on January the 26th, 1907. Moreover, this bird had a bare belly as tho it might have been assisting with incubation.

The very fact that these birds winter with us argues that they have been here for always and always, and the darkening of plumage (as compared with the type form, V. huttoni) testifies further to their long residence.

Anthony’s Vireo is leisurely, almost sluggish at times, in its movements. During the winter it mingles freely with the local troops of Kinglets and Chickadees, and keeps largely to the depths of fir trees. When moving about silently, it bears a striking resemblance to the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. It is, of course, slightly larger and much more deliberate, lacking especially the wing-flirt of the Kaiserkin. The region about the eye is more broadly whitish, and the wing-bars concede a difference upon inspection, but the resemblance is so close as altogether to deceive the unwary.